44 - Sherry Loubardias-Fassler Pt 1: Use Your Noggin

Join tenured nurse and Saskatchewan, Canada native Honored Guest Sherry Loubardias-Fassler as she pontificates about passing the NCLEX twice, why she wanted to become a nurse, her fascinating career progression over three decades, her team as a nurse educator, her brief stint in research, her family, her key to a happy relationship, having a “very high super self esteem,” and more!

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young podcast. Today I am with not only an amazing honored guest, but someone who, well, let's just say I'm not gonna blow smoke up their rear. Someone who had introduced me, one of two people. I introduce all my preceptees on the unit that I currently work on. I introduce them, I tell them about the legacy of their grand preceptees, which are Nikki and Sherry. And one of those two are with us today, Being Sherry, Sherry, welcome to the Feeding Our Young podcast. Thank you so much for having me. And again, as we discussed, I'm not quite sure why I'm so late in the game, but I'm happy to be here now. Yeah, so for a little background our family loves swimming at Sherry's pool. We love hanging out with Sherry and her family She's got a lovely family and we're out there visiting her pool this last time and she's like so What's this about this podcast you got going on and I said I told her all about it. She's like Mm -hmm. I said she like do you want to be a part of it? Cuz she's like, yeah, why didn't you ask me? And I said well, I'm trying not to be that guy with everybody I know hi Hey, have you you want to be on the podcast? Have you heard the podcast? Hey, you know that sort of thing. So I'm way too polite to a fault. It's like So we got along just fine in our preceptorship and in the Unfortunately short period of time we got to work together But we'll cross that bridge as we go along so Sherry introduce yourself to everybody Tell us a little bit about yourself where you graduated and if you don't mind when did you graduate? I don't mind. When Eric and I were prepping for this, he's like, is there's things that you don't maybe want to talk about? And I'm like, have you met me? I will talk to anybody about anything. It's a blessing and a curse. But I digress back to the original question. I have been a nurse for 33 years. graduated. It'll be actually almost 34 in September. I graduated in 1991. from the University of Saskatchewan, that is Canada, if you do not know. I took my boards in Canada, but I did take Colorado too, because a friend of mine and I were gonna move to Colorado for jobs, we wanted to go work in Colorado. So we had to take the NCLEX in Colorado. Now, I'm so old, it was the last paper test. that existed. So that term, two full days, you talk about the stress of your boards, now what we did was two full days. So the morning there was a section, the afternoon there was a section, the next day there was a section, the like so two morning afternoon, two days, four sections to do Colorado NCLEX CLEX boards. So this was like 1995, I think it was. And literally they changed the next year. And it was all electronic. So my friend and I drove down to Colorado in my sweet, sweet red convertible. She still possibly is losing hair from the sunburn to the scalp that she got. We had a blast and she was in her, we graduated together and she was a blast and we had a. blast of a time and we both passed and I'm going to tell you it was easier the second time around than the first time I will say. But those were the boards we took in Canada too. It was two days long. Now, given your proclivity for electronics, are you actually glad that you were the last paper group, or were you at the time bummed that you didn't get to do the electronic one? You know, at the time, it's one of those things electronics and I am learning more and more like they super matter. And if you're not good at it, it's really limiting. And the better you are for all stages of life, career, work, family, everything, the better you are, the more you have tools to help you. Now, again, you can learn a lot online, but not all of it's correct. So use your noggin. But at the time it was like just a really long day. So then you did your first day and then you had to go back and do it again. So that night you're like, my gosh, did I study the right stuff? And we were there literally sitting by a pool, like going over OB again or whatever it was. it's always like, cause those are the hardest questions. Trying to figure out like, you know stuff because you've worked. It's almost, I don't want to say easier the first time, but like you don't know what you don't know. And the second time around, it does make more sense because you've worked and it was easier, but it was still two days of like, I don't remember what that is. But we both passed and we ultimately didn't end up moving. I actually met my husband like 12 minutes later and then we ended up getting married and I still moved to the United States, but in a different kind of plan. So that's my how it all started. And the reason I moved, I'll just go on to the next stage. I ended up being the summer I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan. Now, many people talk about Canada, free healthcare. Well, nothing's free. Number one, taxes, 55%. So right now might pay. 22, 28 max, 55. So your money's gone before you even have a chance to use it in an inappropriate way. So it's not free, you're paying for it all. But the summer I graduated, there was a hiring freeze across the country. So me and a lot of my friends from the University of Saskatchewan, it was really common for recruiters from Texas. California, Florida, Saudi Arabia to bring nurses. Yeah, Saudi Arabia took nurses from Canada all over. They made gobs of money. And again, the rates at the time in Texas and stuff, lots of money, don't get me wrong. So that was a pretty common thing. For me, I ended up taking a job in North Dakota as a psych nurse. And that's how I ended up being in the United States and they took your license so I didn't have to take it then. But then by the time we were gonna move to Colorado, there are states in this country that don't like other states exams, even though they're the same. But so to get a Colorado job, I actually had to take an NCLEX for Colorado. which I did. now I think technically everybody else would take that, but I had to repeat it for a third time. So I ended up in my first job being in North Dakota as a psych nurse on a child and adolescent unit. That was my very first job and that's started it all. Wow. So just take us through the progression of your career then. You you hit the highs, the lows. We'll circle back around to your nursing school experience. But since we're talking about your career, yeah, that's what I want to get to. But for the benefit of everybody, this is a few years ago that you're in North Dakota. So talk about that and how you get from that point, point A, all the way to where you are today, point B. So I moved to North Dakota, fantastic. The whole funny thing was in nursing school, like 80 % of people in nursing, they wanna be baby nurses, right? I had the most awful OB preceptor in nursing school that existed. She didn't let me do anything, she was awful. Basically, it was a really horrible experience. The one benefit which you might see in this podcast or hear, I have no trouble talking to anybody about anything. And I tend to be the person that everybody comes to to ask everything and I'll tell them. so psych, most people in our business love it or hate it. There's really no in between. They don't go, well, maybe I'll take a psych job. They're like, no, I really like it, which twofold. It's a good thing, or you're trying to fix your own personal problem. You got to ask yourself that. Me, it was a little bit of both. I have that nature and that personality. So that was no issue. Background wise, like I don't come from great parents, a great family or anything like that. Am I completely damaged? Absolutely not. But like you really interest you on how people decide things and do their business. So to me, I think that was part of it. I mean, naturally my nature is to talk to people to figure out kind of why they do things and also like tell them why they are doing things they probably shouldn't or how to fix those problems. People always ask me these questions. So when I was in nursing school, what happened was psych was an area to me that made perfect sense. Was it weird to be talking to some 55 year old when you're literally 19 going, how's that sexual abuse history for you? Like how much do you, like you don't have a really good frame of reference for it. So it was very weird, but it was like interesting to me. And I, again, I had no problem talking to people about absolutely anything. Plus you add the OB history in there that was really awful. And I was like, maybe that's not what I meant to do. Like, who knows? And then you add my instructors at school saying, hey, you really should be a lawyer, which really does not breed confidence when you're trying to be a nurse. So because again, I would talk and we'd be like a lot of conversations in class about like, why are we doing this? I don't understand this. Like, I don't think that's true. Like, again, maybe a little more than I should have when you're 19 or 20, telling, talking to people, but I don't, I don't, I always want to know kind of why things are. So psych was a really good area for me. Strangely enough, the people I helped get through many classes in nursing school got better grades than me in nursing school. So if I can say anything to anybody, the important thing about nursing school, is passing, not how well you do. Looking at everything, not limiting yourself because sometimes your grades are not indicative about how well you are and how well you know an area. ICU or ER, I would rather live in a refrigerator box in poverty than work there. The people that knew, power to you. Did I help? Four people get through their ICU rotations? Yes. Somehow they got better grades than me. And that's okay. Cause ultimately it didn't matter, right? So I end up in North Dakota working in a psych unit. I really like it. I think I'm pretty good at it. You learn the job as you go. Fine, I'm doing it. I'm working with somebody that's orienting me in OB. I can't start an IV to save my life, right? So she goes, maybe you should work part -time in rehab. So there are two hospitals in, it's mine at North Dakota, two hospitals there, I'm working at one. The other one has a rehab unit that a couple of the psych nurses work kind of part -time, kind of to keep up your skills. And so I start part -time working there doing rehab, like hips, knees. strokes, kind of like physical rehab, not like chemical dependency, right? So that kind of kept me in the med surge because there was a lot of a little bit of everything. I learned a ton about pain management. I learned a ton about ambulation. To this day, you need somebody to go from a chair to a bed? I'm your gal. Like, I can do all that stuff. So it is super important when you're learning. to kind of not limit yourself. And we can talk about that as well in another sidebar. Again, but I digress. So I end up having these two jobs. the money I had, it was the... Then I got married and had kids. There's the problem. No, I'm truly, as Eric can tell you, married to potentially the nicest person in the universe. Way nicer than me. I have such a liability to him, I'm sure. But after 27 years, I must be doing something correct, because we're still together. And my kids are lovely and growing up and all of that. But so meet him just before I'm supposed to go to Colorado. He was in the Air Force in the military and getting out. We end up moving to Iowa for a job for him again, for all you nurses. The thing about nursing is there is almost no better career. that gives you more opportunities in different areas, no matter where you are. And my background of, know, parents not so great, money, poor, blah, blah, blah, doesn't matter. And the reason why I wanted to be a nurse was I never wanted to ever be able to or have to worry about taking care of myself financially or if I married some douchebag and he left me or died or like these things happen. So I never wanted to not be able to be financially responsible for myself and family. And nursing makes great money. Don't let anybody tell you here that they don't, they do. And they generally do no matter where. And I have... worked in the two lowest paid states of the country, North Dakota and Iowa. So I get it. But to me, looking back when I was deciding what I was going to do when I was like 15, 16, 17, people were like, you should be a doctor. I'm like, I don't want to spend any more time in school than I have to. I didn't really want to be a lawyer per se. Now looking back, I probably should have. Hahaha! wasn't, I liked medical stuff and I really wanted to take care of babies to be honest, I loved it. So that was kind of the trend, the progression to be a nurse. And that's the way I thought about it. And I was a sports person and I got a scholarship to play softball, but I didn't take it because you couldn't make any money playing softball at the time. And you couldn't do clinicals and play softball at the time. So I'm like, well, like, let's get on with life here. So I'm in Iowa thinking I'm going to get an OB job and I end up taking a insurance job at a company doing disability claims analyst, which again, no nurse goes, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a disability claims analyst. That's it. Nobody thinks about these things. You'd be shocked the positions you can get because a nurse is so valuable and you can do so many things again. There is nothing better in the world for it. So I ended up doing that for three years and it was super cool. So it was like a case manager job. I have all these people. I did all the psych patients as well because again, my background and I also had rehab experience. So I'd done hips, knees, strokes. So it's the people if you're like on disability, it was a private policy. and you're claiming to not be able to work. My job was to determine if you met the policy requirements, can you really not do your job? I think people followed all over the United States because people would be going on vacation, but you can't work. That's not really good, but it was a very interesting job. And again, do you ever really think about it? That's what you're gonna do. Nobody's like, high school, yearbook says life lesson or life plan, disability claims analyst. Nobody thinks like that. Right. So that's what I ended up doing as a nurse. Yeah, exactly. Super interesting. Learn IT stuff. Research literally worked with private investigators, following people, sending them for interviews. It was like super, super cool. What ended up happening is I ended up having getting pregnant with my first baby and thinking I'd go back after I had my baby and then realizing I really don't want to and I didn't for a year and then I still probably have credit card debt from that point, but I think I paid it off for hoping but what ended up happening then is I needed a job that had way more flexible hours and a different Monday through Friday. I didn't necessarily want my kids in daycare. Nothing wrong with daycare. I ended up doing it a little bit, but not much. And again, nursing, huge different variation of what you need, right? So I ended up going back and applying for a couple of nursing jobs in the hospital in Iowa. And one of the jobs I applied for was OB. I was a little scared, but the reason I did it was because I had such a great experience. having my baby. Once I worked there, I realized I did not have a good experience having. Now, not from what they did, although there was one that was like probably still pop in the face if I ever saw her again. But everybody was lovely. And now I look back and go, I really wonder what my monitor strip looked like. But, you know, to each their own. But I figured it out that it was just a really lovely place to work. And I ended up working. where I had my baby. And I I worked evenings at first, so three to 11, which sounds awful, but it was nice because my husband worked days and then I worked three to 11. I was kind of an evening night person anyway. It worked out great. We had two or three hours of daycare if we needed it two or three times a week, because I was working part time, so I worked like three shifts a week, so it was great. So I was doing that. And then Iowa has something which was fantastic. And my orientating preceptors in OB were amazing. I'm still Facebook friends with them. We still chat. They taught me so much. And the thing about nursing, it doesn't matter what you do. Somebody's gonna teach you what you need to know. And the blessing is you get somebody who wants to teach you. And your responsibility is to ask what you don't know and think about what they're telling you. The biggest thing of importance is when I teach people, including Eric, it's not just to do things because that's what you do. If you don't understand why you're doing it, that's the problem. Not if you mess it up. Everybody makes mistakes. Just don't make them twice. What you want to do is understand. That's what helps you make sure you're doing the right thing. That's what helps you make sure you should or shouldn't do it again or really think about it. But you got to learn and you got to know and our job as I've oriented potentially 50 people over my 30 years is to help people go, I don't care how you do your job, but you got to do it and meet this criteria. be doing it safely and be understanding what you do. Just because you do a blood sugar at this time doesn't mean anything if you don't understand why. Because then if you do it earlier, you can make a good decision to say, yeah, she ate two hours ago. I can do it now. Not, I have to do it at 6 a So that's when we're doing it. That's not smart. You wouldn't want somebody to take care of you like that. You have to be able to think. But that takes... time and practice and good orientation and your job to say, I don't know why we're doing it. It's not what we're doing it, it's why we're doing it. And then the world will open up. So I'm in Iowa again. I end up working in OB. I love it. They have something called Weekend Package, which why the state does it, I do not know. All you worked was weekends. You worked two days a week, you made time and a half. and you work three weekends out of four. So you work six days a month and made time and a half for all your shifts. So basically there were fights in the parking lot to get the positions because they were so great if you had kids, right? Because you, whatever. So I worked in OB there. There were three hospitals all connected. I would float from one hospital to the other. We all did it. I did labor and delivery postpartum. as well as like antepartum is part of labor and delivery. I learned a ton, I loved it all. I love postpartum better because it's more teaching and chatting. Labor and delivery is too, and I'm gonna tell you, a lot of people always remember their labor and delivery person because it's such a like emotional pain, like amazing experience. But when you start breastfeeding something and you need help, that's the person that matters too. But it all... matters. And it's like the biggest moment in a lot of people's lives. It was a great job. I loved it because clearly I did it for like another 20, basically 20 years. So that's what I did for the most part. And kind of like Eric, he doesn't realize it, but he actually is following me. I started in OB. And because I was really good at teaching people, I would orient a lot of the new staff. I did it at my old job. And then people would go, we need a clinical instructor for this university. Would you do it? I'm like, sure, I'll do it. I don't care. I'll do it. So I take six people like he does, except I'm gonna tell you what I did. Cause I don't like how some other people work. I can almost work. And so I take them and we do all our assessments together and I'd help them chart. There's no like feeding them to other staff. I just did the work because I worked there. So like, telling the nurses loved it because they go, my goodness, yeah, Sherry's gonna do my work for the first six hours of my shift. So that's what we did. So I taught them and I taught them care plans and all that stuff. And also when I was in North Dakota or no, in Iowa, I applied for a job or like there was a job that kind of came up and it was to teach psych at the college. And I applied now. Somehow I got an interview and then she found out like I hadn't done it for a while and she's like, well, you haven't done blah, blah, blah. And then we got to talking and she's like hired me immediately because I could probably talk myself onto a spaceship. But I will maybe not know what I need to know now, but before I get into the spaceship, I will know what I need to know. So she hired me and then I started teaching psych at the college, at a college in Iowa and doing like their psych lab and care plans and doing that. Cause I didn't work in the hospital so I couldn't take them on the floor. So talked about how to like formulate care plans and how to, for me, care plans as much as we all hate them, they're just about learning how to formulate thinking. For me, the verbiage doesn't matter. I get it why it has to say A plus B equals C. but it's the thought process about I've got a problem, what do I look for and how do I fix it and how do I evaluate it's still a problem. So every time you go care plans are the dumbest things you've ever done and I don't know why we do them, you do them to learn how to think about a problem in nursing. And think about them that way, you use them all the time, you just don't really know what you do. It's like algebra, you do use it all the time, you just don't call it algebra. So I ended up teaching in that. factor in Iowa. And so then I, what happened was my husband and I, for whatever reason, he was leaving the guard and we wanted to move a little closer to my family and friends who all live in Canada. And Spokane was a town that had Washington cost of living at the time was way less than now, Seattle wages. So what I did when I came here, I just about crapped. It was like so much more money than I'd ever made before. So it was amazing. Again, tons of opportunity, tons of jobs, different things. What do you wanna do? How does that work? What does that look like? And when I came here and we moved, I got four jobs in one day. It was the best, it could potentially be the best day ever. I got the job I took. I got a postpartum job because of the three areas. Postpartum was my favorite. I don't mind labor. But honestly, even after 20 years of doing it, there was always that feeling in my stomach every time I went to work to go, I hope this goes okay. And there's a point where, not that bad things don't happen in postpartum, but bad things happen in labor. And if the people that like ER, I see you, they're drawn to OB. If you want to touch a baby and still have that feel, that's labor and delivery. And she was good at it. Am I the best? No, there are people that way better, but I was good at it and I liked it, but I didn't love it. And it always made me feel that little, I hope it goes okay because it can go bad fast. And you know what to do. Yeah, and it can go bad for reasons that are outside of your control, outside of the health professionals control, and that's the part that's like, ugh. Yeah, people don't understand that you have no control over your labor. You can have every birth pan known to man, but your baby decides. Your baby can like it, not like it, roll the wrong way, come down fast, come down slow, get stuck just by turning their head. And there is nothing in the world that you can do or prevented or tried to make that fix in the blink of an eye. And people don't understand that. I've probably delivered, I don't know, hundreds of babies over 10, 12 years that I did most of my labor before, labor and delivery before I came to Iowa or to Spokane because I did postpartum here. But like I've delivered, you know, probably a few too many, because I didn't have people pushed to like real late because I didn't want the doctor waiting around. But like, I have had 10 pound babies fall out and I've had six pound babies stuck and it's all about positioning. I can only do so much and there's only four things you can do with a pregnant woman. Positioner, give her fluids, check her and call somebody. Like that's pretty much it and that's your power and all you can do is hope that it all goes all right and most of the time it does but when it doesn't, it's not good. And people do a lot and people have bad experiences, but you always want that to be as good an experience as you can. So you have to be thoughtful and be thinking and again, know why you're doing what you're doing so you can catch those things. But ultimately, sometimes there's absolutely nothing you can do. And Eric will know this too, and even in postpartum, like I work in a clinic now, which I'll get to, but Hahaha People complain, people will have this all blah blah blah about a problem, about work, about life. And I go, and you might need to edit this out. I say, it's not a dead baby. And I mean that in the sense of recognizing the importance of what is going on in regards to that's a bad shift. And I've had that. Yeah. So when your coworker doesn't do something to the best of whatever, I really do literally say that out loud and to myself that there are people that do that and deal with that as a job occasionally. I have one baby that is now 20. I think they can sue me for one year left, but only baby that I ever have worried about. and she thanked me a week after. And that baby went to NICU and had strokes and I was like, my goodness. Now again, 99 % of the time it works out great. But understand in your career what you do, it matters to somebody and the rest of your life you have to recognize what does it mean. and the reference of how bad something could be, could generally be way worse than what you deal with generally. But so I end up teaching psych, I end up working in OB, I end up teaching all these students. I move, I keep doing it and I love it. But then ultimately what happened is I was way fatter than I am now and I have bad knees from sports. and my knees were getting worse. And what happened was, is I started needing time off because I had to have a knee replacement. And then I needed to lose a hundred pounds to get my knee done, which is really, really hard. And what ended up happening was I ended up going to work for the clinic. where I had my own, wasn't where I had my bariatric surgery, but I had bariatric surgery and then lost a bunch of weight. And I just recently had my knee done and I feel a thousand times better and ended up becoming a case manager, nurse case manager at the bariatric clinic, at a bariatric clinic that I work at now. And now my job entails, it's Monday through Friday, although it's actually supposed to be four days. of 10 hour shifts, but if I wanted to work whatever I wanted to work, they would let me because I'm cool and I'm really good. And, again, different, never even thought again, nobody's yearbook says I'm going to be an RN case manager. Nobody's yearbook says that when they're in high school, right? But again, opportunity, there you have it. And that's what I do. So my job is to help people through the bariatric, which means weight loss, medical, mine's surgical. weight loss program to help them get to bariatric surgery so they can hopefully have as much success as I've had with it. So that is the long slash short story of my current employment career of 33 years. And I want to point out the irony that as I'm seeing, you we see the timer on my end. I'm keeping an eye on, how long the episode is going to be, et cetera. 33 year career. And we are at the 33 minute mark of your episode. No, I love it. So wonderful. You know, this is Sherry with your permission. I think what we'll do is we're going to turn this into a double episode. I mean, I'd be a fool to think that one episode could contain all that is the force that is Sherry. Definitely a twofer. So let's let's I will just I have like maybe one more question for you for this episode and it's about you. So just you personally and we'll we'll get into the next episode. We'll get into nursing school your stories about that and your advice for nursing students today. That'll be part two. So don't miss part two. But in to round this out to just give everybody that's your professional career. We kind of got your timeline. What is Sherry the person like. What do you like to do hobby wise. Tell us about your family. Tell us more about what makes you, you. Do you really think anybody wants to know? And please do not edit this out. No, I won't! No, this stays! Because I knew this isn't actually going to be your response! Okay, and he'll agree. This is exactly what you get. If you ever have Kara on, she is our old A nurse manager. I have to say this here, because Kara has agreed to do it. Now, getting her to get on here is a different story, because that gal is busier than I don't even have an appropriate acronym for that. all that. But when I got hired onto Postpartum, this is a fun little story for everybody, four and a half years ago, almost five by this point, I got hired onto Postpartum. And I don't even remember, like I hadn't met, I don't know what the, it might have been the last time I floated there while I was still in pedsonc I'm not sure, and we knew that I was coming to Postpartum. That might be how this context worked, because I go to the unit, Kara's there, maybe I was just being shown something, I don't know. And they're like, yeah, we've already got your preceptor, your orientees lined up, orient, preceptors lined up. And we've got Nikki and you're gonna love her and she's got this and that. And Kara's like, and we gave you Sherry And a couple people look, there's not a look of concern in their face, but their countenance changed. And Kara's like, and I'm like, and Kara goes, so you're definitely gonna learn things. I mean, you're definitely gonna, and I'm like, Kara, what is this? What has changed in you? Who is this Sherry person that you're changing this way for? And she just, it was the most hilarious thing. Cause she's just like, she's like, no, you're going to love her. You're going to love her. She's amazing, but you're definitely going to, you're going to learn things. And I'm like, what does that mean? What are you trying to tell me? It was awesome. What she was trying to tell you was you either really like me and think I'm amazing or you're gonna hate my guts. There was no, and you wanna talk about personal? That is me in a nutshell. And I think I'm 95 % good and the 5 % that do not like me, honestly, nobody wants to be friends with them anyway. Like seriously, one other career I forgot was I did a year in research. So researching COVID, researching medications, researching stuff, doing actual studies, I did not enjoy that in the least. It was a lot of lab work. I still can't start IVs to save my life. I'm still terrible and I probably always will be. But learned a lot about a lot of things, but about me, so my background. My mom, whatever, I get into nursing to make sure I can take care of myself. I am lucky enough to meet my husband. After the summer, I told everybody I knew when I was 25, returning 25, their job was to introduce me to every single man they knew because this was really ridiculous, right? And so I happened to meet my husband, Michael, who by far, best thing that's ever happened to me. The kids are great, but that man, Best thing that's ever happened to me. And I tell my children currently, do not marry a douchebag. Like lesson number one, totally matters. You are married to the female potential version of my Michael. You cannot have the benefit of a great partner in your life, which is two things for you. Relationships should be easy. People who say they're hard, they're lying. Because easy ones are easy because they make sense. You help each other, you're supportive of each other. You bring the best out in each other. If you bring the worst out, you're done. You should break up and find somebody else. If you're struggling before, you're not going to improve. It is going to get worse. And if you don't think everybody that I know asked me these things, That is what they do. Everybody always does because I'm very clear about these things. So I'm happy enough or lucky enough to have married my husband, Michael, and he was the first one. So 100 percent. But when they when Kara said that to you, that's what they mean. You either really like me and I am hysterical and I'm hysterical all the time. But you know exactly what you're getting. And my interview with Kara. And the five people, there were nurse managers, the manager, and I think Ellen D because I applied for like multiple jobs. So it was a panel at my interview. And this is what I said. I've done OB for 12 years. You're going to teach me how to use your computer and your kind of your processes and protocol and things change all the time. I'll learn anything you need me to learn. But basically I know what I'm doing. And I, again, that's not that I know more than anybody else, because there is always change. Change is the best thing for everyone and everything, life, work, school, nothing stays the same and nothing is ever meant to. When you understand that, you don't have to fear it. But if you do change, it should be purposeful, it should be for a reason, and it should bring a better outcome. And I told them. If somebody doesn't like me or we don't get along, I'm not gonna go to you managers, I'm gonna go to them. Also, I went and pointed at each of them and said, I don't want your job. I have no desire to take your job or your job or your job. Here's my best asset to your unit. You don't have to manage me at all. I'm gonna come, I'm gonna show up for work, I'm gonna do a good job. And my work goal is for patients to come to me and say, I'm so happy you came back and I have you a second night. Because like, OB, you don't sometimes see people more than that. But when you do, and they say that, I'm so happy you're gonna come back or you know, I can't wait to see you tomorrow and they're happy you're there, that tells you you're doing a good job. So that was my interview. But my biggest redeeming feature is you get exactly what you see at your interview. When you interview me, it's not garbage. I told my husband, again, I tell this story all the time, I'm his second wife, so I call myself his upgrade wife. He'd had a vasectomy, he was separated, they were not together, don't get me wrong, he had small kids. I said to him, at our first date, which I do not do for lack of a better term, Chip Flix, I said, we're gonna go to Crimson Tide for a movie and dinner. and I'm going to probably have an appetizer and I'm going to have a steak and I'm going to have dessert and I don't share any of it. And if you don't like it, you can buy me dinner and we're done. And by the way, if you don't want to have that vasectomy reversed or have more kids, cause you already had to, then we're finished because I'm not having that. If it doesn't work and we need like a sperm bank or donor, we will, if you're not willing to do that route, then I don't want to waste my time with you. And I'm not going to like find out later and then be invested and maybe be in love with you and then be like, I'm going to talk him into it. No, you're not. So basically those stories are exactly, I'm exactly what you get. And I always say to my husband, am I the same? He goes, absolutely. I say that I used to say to Kara, I'm exactly what I was when I interviewed. And she goes, you are exactly that. And it's never changed. And it's been maybe good and bad, but that's exactly what I am. You can talk to me about absolutely everything. And I'm not gonna say that I'm always right, but I'm always gonna have an opinion. But the best people in the world are the people that can take the opinion and still decide what opinion matters to them. That's why everybody takes me bridal shopping. Because I'm gonna tell you, I think this, but. Unlike say yes to the dress, that would be a cold day and know, that somebody says the dress on me isn't whatever, but I super love it. And I care more about what they say than what I say, because that's a bad thing. You need to care about what you think and why you think it. It doesn't matter per se what their opinion is. And we're not talking about the best way to do your job or the reasons we do things. The joke of the unit has always been that Sherry has very high super self -esteem and it is true. Again, blessing and a curse. But that's personally me. I have a husband that's great. My three kids are in the going to college, graduated, finished high school, starting thing. So far, so good. I have lovely kids. I hope they continue to turn out well. So far, so good. Works in progress. Personally, that's, think again, my biggest blessing and benefit is that I know who I am. And then my husband helps me be maybe dial it down a bit. And sometimes for him, cause he's, you know, he'll talk to anybody about anything. My joke about Michael is he could talk to a stone and have a great conversation. He might have had more fun at my high school reunion, no, my university reunion than I did now. And I had a great time. He was talking to everybody and it was great. And he is again, the best by far, best decision I've ever made in my life. And I hope he thinks the same. I think he does. yeah, pretty sure. Pretty sure. Yeah. So that's really what it comes down to. And that's who I am and what I am. And that is exactly what I was hoping would be conveyed, not hoping, I knew, because it's Sherry. You have now been introduced to the force that is Sherry. The words Sherry and sugarcoating don't ever go in the same book, let alone same sentence or paragraph. And I love that about you, Sherry. I love the fact that it was a breath of fresh air coming into postpartum from where I was. You know, my favorite thing is meeting new people. That's part of the reason why this podcast exists. I love meeting new people, I love talking with people, love getting to know them better and letting other people get them to know them better, getting to know them better as well. And so to come to Postpartum and to just meet this whole new cornucopia of people and you know, and there's no one like Sherry. Anyone who worked with us back then will tell you there is nobody like Sherry. We're not spending an episode talking about the royal family. So I'm gonna just, we'll say that right there. because that may or may not be a topic of hot discussion with Sherry. people that we work with would see me at the time clock and go, I'm so glad you're here. I love working with you. Like, I don't think people just say that out of the blue, you know. they saying that out of any sort of terrifying anything. It's not like they had anything to get out of you. One of my favorite stories that I still share with everybody is we talk about when we got that one time that we all, quote unquote, decided we were gonna get pizza pipeline. And then by the time we got it, everybody else begged out except for you and me. And I said, yeah, Sherry and I, both were said, I said, you still wanna do it? I still wanna do it? goes, yeah. We ordered the same meal we would have ordered for everybody else, and man, we plowed through it, we felt sick, and we loved it. It was awesome. All right, so Sherry, we'll wrap this one up. Three simple words. So I ask everybody, what are the three words they use to describe nursing school? And since episode two is going to, we're gonna talk all about your nursing school experience, your stories, and the advice you have for nursing students. What are the three words you would use to describe nursing school? And then everybody can jump to the second episode to find out what. He asked me this just before I came on and it came to me immediately. The first word was awful. And then the next, the two, it's really together was worth it. Yep. So don't miss episode two. You've been introduced to the force that is Sherry. Now let's see what the force that is Sherry has to say about learning about nursing. Thank you so much, Sherry. No problem. We'll see you again.